


forever means

by Jamjar88



Category: Green River (Band), Pearl Jam
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-25
Updated: 2020-09-25
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:07:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26644960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jamjar88/pseuds/Jamjar88
Summary: One night can change everything....A Stone/Jeff slashy-ish request I got on Tumblr.
Relationships: Jeff Ament/Stone Gossard
Kudos: 15





	forever means

##  **STONE**

I don’t think me and Jeff saw eye to eye for a long time. I remember the night I met him, he had this big glam hair, wearing a cut-off tank or something like that, just so like, _not_ Seattle. I mean you just knew he wasn’t from here. And that was funny to me, then, it was just too good to pass up, and I guess we kind of gave him a hard time about it, he didn’t get it at all. Mark had to kinda talk him down before he punched me or something. I’d seen him play bass and he was pretty fucking great, maybe that was part of it. I couldn’t play for shit at that point and I guess I was probably a little jealous. Also I was what, eighteen or something like that - and he was this kind of adult, with a job and an apartment and he played in a band. _Why can’t you appreciate my sense of humor?_ I’d always say to him, heavy on the irony, and he’d say something like: _in Montana you’d get your ass kicked._ Like I gave a fuck about something like that. I was a smartass kid and I wanted to be this rock guy, I was Seattle all over.

Anyway by the time Green River got off the ground, we made it work. We didn’t really hang out, but it was fun at first, I mean we were all having a good time to start and we were onto a good thing. I don’t know if it was ever the music we wanted to be playing, but we became this kinda big deal in Seattle and when you’re a kid that’s pretty seductive, you just go with it. 

There was one time when we were in the studio recording for the Sub Pop EP and the girl who was helping produce the record really got in my face about something, I think she didn’t like my ideas for the mix, and I was kind of a jerk about it. Actually, she ended up crying. It wasn’t too great. And Jeff pulled me out of the mixing room and gave me this big fucking lecture about being professional but also just not being an asshole, and looking back he was totally right, but I was pretty bent out of shape about that and we didnt really speak a lot the next few weeks. Even when he got pulled into a fight at a show, I didnt do anything. I was thinking, like- _don’t fuck with me. Now you know._ I just kind of watched. That sounds pretty shitty now, but.. that’s how things were. I think now, after all this time, no one would believe it - but we were just coming from very different places.

The LA show with Jane’s Addiction - that was right after San Francisco, which was probably one of the best shows we’d played up to that point. People actually liked us, it wasn’t exactly smooth but I remember having a great time and after, all of us except Jeff went out in the Castro and had this insane night in like, the drag bars or whatever. And the next day he acted really pissed that he had to be the one to drive but it was like- why didn’t you just come out with us? You know? I guess we were all acting passive aggressive in different ways. It was definitely a natural kind of ending point. 

But I was on a high that next day because I spent so much time feeling frustrated by Mark, or by Sub Pop, or what people thought we were or what we should do, it was just good to have enjoyed being young guys in a punk rock band for once. I have really great memories of that day and the drive down to LA, when I woke up I just saw ocean, these blue skies. I was just _excited._

I lost my key to my hotel room, I remember that - I was in this phone booth in the hotel lobby trying to call the label people we’d invited to confirm if they were coming, and I just left my shit by the phone, I was stressed out because I couldn’t get any straight answers and I realised we could end up with no one coming at all. I got back up to the ninth floor or whatever it was and realised I’d left my keys down there, but they’d just disappeared, the front desk hadn’t taken them or whatever… so then Jeff was pissed in case someone broke into our room with the key and stole all our shit. I mean we had like no shit at all, that was the funny thing. He didn’t see it that way.

We got to SCREAM, it was this secret club somewhere in the bowels of this huge gothic, old Hollywood hotel on the Sunset Strip. You went down the staircase and there were a few different rooms, one was the stage, then there were rooms for DJs and stuff, and it was just so dark, just so many bodies, the only light in the main room was coming from these huge screens that would just play music videos, and there was every type of person there, goths, punks, metal dudes, dancing just looking out of their minds, and I remember us all looking at each other like- OK. Because we were these punky kids from Seattle and we’d never been anywhere like that, and we had to get on that stage. I was fucking terrified. I remember we all got pretty drunk in the parking lot before we even went, that was our usual thing, and then we get there with our shit and we’re like, we need more beer.

Jeff brings Mark backstage and they have it out about the guest list. Neither one of them is making a lot of sense, the whole thing is a total trip, at one point it looks like Jeff is going to grab Mark and punch him for real. I was fucked up as the rest of them but I remember getting right in between them and just the way Jeff looked at me then, like, he hated me or something. 

I thought we played OK, I was happy with how it went, as far as our playing and even Mark’s singing, maybe I was more drunk than I remember but it wasn’t terrible. That’s why I was so down when we got off stage and found out like 2 out of 10 people on our list actually showed.

I still felt like it wasn’t a total disaster, seeing the type of people at SCREAM I felt like we kinda fit in there and maybe LA could work. We drank more, watched the other band, waiting for Jane’s Addiction. I was excited to see them. Perry is this otherworldly kind of character and he came to say hi to us, his eyes just fucking crazy. I had no idea how to act around him, I was probably just kind of obnoxious. I was watching Jeff, I could tell he was upset, but after the scene with the keys I didn’t go over, just left him to brood.

I really remember watching Jeff, though. It was like- I don’t know. When he broke his string on stage I was gonna go over, help him out, and I didn’t. And I remember him looking over at me on stage, like _what the fuck?_ I didn’t even know why I was being a jerk any more. He looked really defeated on that stage, and after. He always wore a stupid hat or something and he just took off his hat, slumped down in the corridor and sat there. And I was standing with the other guys talking to Navarro and some others, cool LA people, and I felt like… I don’t know. This weird kind of feeling like a pull to Jeff, like I should go sit with him, talk to him. 

Because he was real. He didnt have a lot of front like the rest of us, I knew that as soon as I met him. And I really fucking respected him, as a musician. I didn’t want him to drop out of the band, or whatever. And it really seemed like he was at a low point. 

Then, Jane’s go to take the stage and we all hang out at the side, it’s pretty intense because I see they’ve got like a set of steel drums, Navarro has a 12 string, and Perry is almost naked but covered in kinda glittery body paint and they have all these girls on stage. And the crowd just loves them, the minute they get on stage. 

And then they start off with these like African drums and all you can hear is screaming and it’s completely dark, the guitars come in and then Perry, and suddenly it’s just this burst of pure _energy_ , the steel drums and the bass and the way people are responding to them. I never saw anything like that at a rock show before. I was just standing there in my little ripped jeans and Iggy Pop shirt thinking: we are nowhere near this. We’re not even anywhere near the same ballpark. 

I look at Jeff and he’s looking at me, and we’re both all like - _woah_. I remember us both just smiling at each other, for the first time in, I don’t even know how long. 

I remember when Jane’s were doing their encore, Jeff just… _hugged_ me. It was totally out of the blue, we hadn’t touched in - well, maybe we never really touched before. I mean we didn’t have that kind of friendship. But it was just pure emotion, and I _got_ it. I remember us just squeezing the life out of each other, and the sound of those drums in my ears.

I was on such a high after that. Me and Jeff just wanted to talk to Steve, their drummer, or Perry, or Navarro, we were these instant crazed fans, but those guys just wanted to get wasted! We found Mark and Bruce in the hallway, they hadn’t even watched the whole show. They just wanted to go home- well, the hotel, but also they wanted to go back to Seattle, they said LA was a hell hole or something like that. I didn’t get that at all. I just didn’t get it. Seattle, the whole scene, it was great but I wanted to be _bigger_ than that. I could see how a band _could_ be bigger than that. It wasn’t about money or fame or whatever, it was about magic. We’d witnessed something kind of magical that night.

The rest of Green River all wanted to leave around 1 which was when we were getting picked up with our kit. But me and Jeff were just having a great time. We were just on the dance floor with the other bands, it was a great vibe, all different kinds of people and music. I could tell Mark couldn’t figure out why I was siding with Jeff, but I didn’t care.I told him to go. Me and Jeff stayed in that place til it closed, something crazy like 5 or 6 a.m., it was getting light when we staggered up the stairs back out into the parking lot. And then - _how are we getting back? What’s our hotel called again?_

We walked miles it seemed like, past all these dirty tattoo parlors, broken down bars, people lying on the street and it looks like they’re dead… The sun was coming up, we didnt have any money left and we looked like total shit, but we didnt stop _talking._ Just talking about music, about what we could do better, what we wanted to do. It was definitely a connection between us.

We got back to the hotel, he made some crack about me losing my key earlier. Like he wasn’t mad about it anymore. 

And I don’t even remember who started it, honestly. It was dark in the room, we closed the door behind us, and then it just happened. Like we both just knew it was gonna. I mean, it was weird, sure. I’d kissed guys when I was wasted - and I was pretty wasted right then - but Jeff was someone who I’d had a kind of strange relationship with for a while. So there was a _lot_ in that kiss. 

We didn’t really know what we were doing. We were exhausted and drunk, our band seemed like it was about to break up, we were two totally different people, and all of that was there. We almost stopped right away - I remember kind of looking at him in the darkness and my heart was beating right out of my chest, like, _fuck,_ don’t let this ruin everything now. But then he kissed me again and somehow we ended up on one of the beds, these narrow single beds, we just kissed for a long time. I remember how heavy his body was on top of me, the familiar way he smelled, the way he grabbed my jaw when he kissed me, the way our teeth clashed and stuff, it wasn’t this perfect scene or whatever, at all. 

Sure we were both really horny and whatever, but I think we both knew we couldn't take it too far. For a lot of reasons. And when he tried to do more, I stopped it, I just took his hand and I gripped it real hard, he understood what I meant. And then we just lay together in that tiny bed for a long time, as it got brighter outside the window, not talking, just… thinking, and at some point I was like, “I’m sorry.” I meant, for all the bullshit before. That felt important.

Things weren’t perfect after that, of course. But we got out, together. A week later Green River played our last show. 

Nothing happened between me and Jeff for a long time after that. I always thought it might, in Mother Love Bone, when things got tough with Andy - I always thought I’d hear him knock on my door one night. But it wasn’t til a lot later, when we were back in LA, just him and me, felt like a lifetime away from that Green River show. 

We were both really sad, I was missing Andy terribly. And he came into my hotel room the night after we did a full day of press interviews, talking about our dead singer, about why drugs are bad, about the record we were never gonna tour, the band we were never gonna be in again. 

And he just got in with me and held me. Pretty much all night. And if I cried, or said shit I shouldn’t have, he just stayed there, let me know it was OK. That saved me, in a way; and it wasn’t long after that, we found Eddie.

There are some people you can get through anything with. Thirty years down the line, that’s what I know about me and Jeff.

##  **~**

##  **JEFF**

We were basically kids when we first met. And as everybody knows, I wanted to punch him in the first 30 seconds. That’s not the story I wanted to tell, though. 

It was coming up to Halloween. 1987. We’d just played a show at this club in the Mission in San Francisco. Our guitars kept falling out of tune and we had to keep stopping, Mark doing his bit to keep the crowd happy, by the end of that thing he’d totally blown his voice out. On our way back to the shitty hostel he kept talking about how great he thought it went, and I just remember thinking, like - _that_ was great? 

Me and Stone weren’t really speaking at that point, it was kind of a common thing back then. We’d do the banter or whatever on stage and then when we’d get off it’d just be, avoid each other as much as possible. 

I think everybody in Green River knew it wasn’t working anymore, but we had the record out that summer, and we were just starting to book bigger shows, places that weren’t Seattle, or fucking Tacoma, or whatever. In this case we were supporting Jane’s Addiction down in LA and that was a big deal, they were killing it in LA at that time, and we’d got on their slot at SCREAM. 

I remember everyone was fucking tired and hungover on the drive down to LA. And of course I was the one who had to drive, they all went to sleep in the back of Stone’s piece of shit car and I remember driving along with the sun hurting my eyes, just really jacked up on terrible gas station coffee, not even wanting to listen to music. They all insisted we take the Pacific Coast Highway and see the ocean, then they all just fell asleep right away and missed it.

I remember trying to stay excited about the show that night because we had some industry dudes coming, but mostly just feeling really bummed out. When I looked back in the mirror I could hardly see through the rear window because of all our gear, the car was a total wreck inside and out, smelling like unwashed guys and and old food, and I felt like I hadn’t slept in days. It was like - a low point for me. Three years of this kinda stuff by now. I lived off tips at work, whatever lowly amount the piece of shit promoters would deign to hand over to us at the end of a night. I was renting downtown, struggling to make rent most months, still after three years. Couldn’t go back home- my dad would’ve loved that too much. I guess all I’m saying is, I needed this to work, and tonight was our chance.

That night started off a disaster. Stone and me were rooming together and I remember thinking it sucked, I just didn’t want to deal with him more than I had to. He lost his key to the room almost straight away, I mean- that’s so Stone, but I didn’t think it was funny at all. I didn’t want to leave my house keys and my passport or whatever else I’d brought with me, because any weirdo could’ve just broken in and taken it. I remember being so mad at Stone about it. I just went and took a long shower and stood there feeling mad. All I could think about was Stone and his fucking keys. I didn’t even think to ask him about the label people or whatever.

The other guys in Green River were all getting fucked up before we went in and i’m like, _what are you doing?_ This was a big thing, we had actual industry people coming tonight. I probably had half of one beer and was like, I’m done. I go to talk to the club promoter and Mark shows up next to me, pretty gone by this point, and he can hardly speak because he blew out his voice back in San Francisco. And he’s like- “who are all these names?” “Who’s this on the list?” As if I never told him we were inviting outside people, which I definitely did. He got pretty bent out of shape about it. It was awkward, to say the least.

I remember Stone just standing there watching us, almost like he’s getting a kick out of it. And that made me so mad. I knew he cared if we got real label interest, he wanted this as much as I did, but he always let me be the fall guy. At one point he’s like - “Mark, I think maybe the label people are a good idea”. And to a drunk off his ass Mark that just kinda falls on deaf ears. I honestly think we would’ve come to _blows_ if it wasn’t time to go on stage right then.

Our set was a disaster. Mark couldn’t sing. I broke a fucking string. Only a couple of the label guys showed, I was glad, to be honest. I just wanted to forget that show even happened. It felt like we were in deep shit as a band.

I just wanted to get out of there but we had to wait for our ride back to the hotel and I was pretty drunk, I didnt know the neighbourhood. So I just hung out feeling like shit, like the outsider or whatever. You could tell Perry from Jane’s Addiction was like, tripping balls. I didn’t know what to expect from them honestly, their whole shtick seemed very LA and out there, they had these girls in bikinis, like, dancers, backstage wandering around. I think Stone and the other guys were just trying their best to pick them up.

I went to the side of the stage to watch Jane’s. Feeling so tired, just done. And then - those big tribal drums kicked in, the crowd went literally wild, and I just - it hit me, right between the eyes. From that point on I was like - _woah_. I couldn’t stop watching. At some point I notice Stone is standing right next to me. And the other guys have just disappeared. Which seems crazy because what’s going on here is so fucking incredible. But Stone’s there watching them with me, and I never saw him like that before. He’s totally transfixed. It’s like all that attitude is just gone, he looked like a kid at Christmas. And I knew it because I was feeling the exact same way.

And then we’re just laughing, we both just crack up right there because it feels so fucking great to be right there, watching this band, and- I don’t know- I think I knew that things were gonna be OK. We both felt the same way. We both just wanted to be that good. And it didn’t matter if Mark wanted it, or if Sub Pop liked it, or any of that- it was more of an unspoken thing, _this is what we wanna do_.

I remember Stone put his arm around me, probably during their last song. I wasn’t expecting it, he’s not a very touchy kind of guy at all. And then it turned into a hug, which I guess was kind of strange, but at the time it didn’t seem strange. It felt like we shared something, and I guess maybe that was his way of saying I’m sorry- or, let’s just try and move forward in a better way. 

After, Mark said he hated the band. I felt like he was just trying to antagonise me at that point, so it was like - I was talking up Jane’s, and he was saying how awful they were, and it escalated like that. And I think when Stone stepped in and took my side, I was kind of shocked. It was the first time he’d ever done something like that. I remember us looking at each other like, _no- I got you on this._ And the way we’d been before, watching the show - it was almost like there was something kind of magical about that night.

Me and Stone just spent that whole night dancing crazy, getting wrecked, meeting people and talking shit about our band. I never would’ve guessed that I’d come away from that situation feeling totally re-energised, just excited again about music. I think I’d been feeling kind of lonely up to that point and I just didn’t feel so lonely any more.

We had to walk back to the hotel and I remember it was dawn, the city looked kind of beautiful. I was really happy to be there with him. I just remember thinking that, it surprised me more than anyone. Underneath the shit-talk he was just a kind of sweet kid. He loved music. That was the first time I really understood how much he loved music. And it was like.. a door opening.

Whatever happened between us, then - I can’t say much about that. It was just a kiss, we didn’t ride off into the sunset together or whatever. It’s a lifetime away, now.

But I’m gonna keep it for myself. Some things get too complicated if you try and put them into words, and it’s OK to keep them where they belong; somewhere on the inside, waiting for you when you need them the most.


End file.
